


But can we Trust Sherlock? Getting to the Core of the Mary Problem

by the_etymologist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sherlock Series 3 Spoilers, Unreliable Narrator, Writing, still struggling to make sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_etymologist/pseuds/the_etymologist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can we trust Sherlock to tell us the truth, when the entire writing of series works to undermine his credibility? How do we know if he's not still deluded because of his emotional attachment to Mary (and John) or actively spinning a story for his own purposes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	But can we Trust Sherlock? Getting to the Core of the Mary Problem

Sherlock doesn’t see Mary’s past, because he is emotionally compromised. He ignores the clues because he likes her and wants John to be happy. He can’t apply his rigid standards of reason and logic when it comes to her. His deductions are (fatally) flawed.

So how can we trust his deductions after the shooting? And are we _expected_ to trust them?

We are shown literally nothing to make any judgement on Mary’s actions by ourselves. We are not shown what’s on the USB stick (which lines did she cross? was she a no holds barred villain? or did she remain in a grey area?), we don’t know why she became an assassin (Free will? Outside pressure? Danger Fix? Moral Conviction) or why she gave it up (Genuine Remorse? Fear for her Life?). We don’t _see_ her call the ambulance. We don’t know what exactly her plan was for Magnusson. She only explains her actions – shooting Sherlock – after Sherlock has fed her the lines.

What we _do_ see of her is ambiguous. The shooting itself is ambiguous: not quite on the level of a headshot (99,9% deadly), but almost certainly deadly anyway (95%, say). What she says at Sherlock’s bedside in the hospital is ambiguous (Threatening? Pleading? Negotiating?). She brings a gun to the empty house, but she doesn’t shoot Sherlock.

There is a range of different interpretations for her actions, is what I’m trying to say, ranging from Unrepentant Villain to Good Person in a Tight Spot, depending on how we choose to fill the gaps. 

But we are not left alone in this: Sherlock disambiguates it for us. Now, Sherlock is not just anybody. He’s the hero of the show, he’s the one whose perspective we’re seeing things from during series 3 and he’s the most intelligent person on earth (apart from his brother. And maybe Magnusson. And Mary? Well, he’s clever, anyway.) Sherlock gives us the party line: She shot because she needed to incapacitate him, but did everything to save his life; she did it for John; her actions are equivalent to his own so John (and we) cannot judge her.

Four problems:

a)      We’ve been consistently shown that Sherlock’s judgement is impaired when it comes to Mary.

b)      We’ll see that his reasoning skills are still not infallible, as he completely misjudges the nature of Appledore later on.  

c)       The text of the show undermines his words (how does he know about the ambulance? Also, he _did_ die and she _did_ have other options – whether those options would have been as good for her is another question. Point is, she had them.)

d)      We know from S2 that Sherlock leaves John (and us) in the dark about his plans and motivations (i.e. that he ‘let’ Moriarty destroy his reputation to draw him in).

So, how can we trust him, when the entire writing of series works to undermine his credibility? How do we know if he’s not still deluded because of his emotional attachment (a and b) or actively spinning a story for his own purposes (d)?

I truly don’t know. My feeling is that the writers want us to believe him and redeem Mary. The problem is that if they want us to believe a story that stretches logic as much as the one Sherlock tells us, they cannot have that story be told by a character who has proven to be an unreliable narrator multiple times. We simply have no fixed ground to go on. I don’t know anymore when Sherlock’s judgement is sound and when it isn’t. When he is gaslighting John (and us) and when he’s telling the truth.

_If_ that was the intention – make us feel insecure and uncomfortable about what is going on, not trusting our senses anymore – because there’s more going on than we get to see, then the writing is _brilliant_. If they clear up in S4 at that Sherlock deceived John and spun a Mary-as-my-saviour story because he was executing some grand plan and everything falls into place – that would be awesome. If they clear up in S4 that Sherlock is still deluded at the end of E3, and that he’ll later realize painfully that he sacrificed himself for someone who’s not worth it – that would be awesome.

But if their goal was to make us believe what Sherlock told us at face value, because what we saw is exactly what we got, then they cocked it up. They would have needed to give us something more in order to make it truly believable – a more trustworthy Sherlock, a less ambiguous Mary, a more self-thinking John. Something that made it possible for us to swallow the bitter pill of being asked to forgive someone for shooting Sherlock and getting away with it.


End file.
